FORZA ITALIA 'NEVER HAD MAFIA LINKS'
FORZA ITALIA 'NEVER HAD MAFIA LINKS'
(See related story on site) (ANSA) - Rome, February 8 - Forza Italia has never had any connection with the Mafia, Justice Minister Angelino Alfano said Monday, denying claims by a state's witness that the party launched by Premier Silvio Berlusconi in the early 1990s grew out of talks between the state and Cosa Nostra.
''This is an attempt to discredit the government, which has always been on the front lines in the fight against the Mafia,'' he said.
Angelino's statement followed testimony by a witness in a trial in Palermo, Massimo Ciancimino, who claimed that Berlusconi's Forza Italia party grew out of a series of negotiations with the Mafia during the 1990s.
Ciancimino, son of late Palermo mayor, Vito, on Monday produced notes allegedly penned by Mafia superboss Bernardo Provenzano and addressed to Berlusconi and his long-time advisor Marcello Dell'Utri which he says demonstrates the nature of their accord.
While Alfano did not refer explicitly to the accusations, he did point out that he had been an active member of the party's Sicilian branch in the 1990s and that he knew ''there was never any contact with organized crime''.
He also noted the government had done the exact opposite of everything Ciancimino claimed it had agreed to do by launching ''the most ambitious anti-Mafia campaign in 20 years''.
''The Mafia isn't afraid of meetings and debates. It's afraid of having its assets seized and going to jail,'' Alfano said, stressing that the government's anti-mafia policies were "serving as a model for other Group of Eight countries".
He added that the Mafia ''doesn't always fight with murders and assassinations, but will try to discredit its enemies''.
Crossing party lines to express his solidarity with the government, centrist opposition UDC party leader Pier Ferdinando Casini said Ciancimino's claims "insulted Berlusconi's voters".
"Berlusconi and I have had our differences of opinion over the last 15 years and Italians will remember the polemics between us, but to say that his party sprang from the Mafia is plainly dishonest," he said.
Berlusconi stepped into politics by founding Forza Italia over the rubble of the Christian Democrat and Italian Socialist parties, which were toppled during the Clean-Hands bribery scandals in the early 1990s.
Last year, it joined with the right-wing National Alliance to form the People of Freedom party, one of two groups in Berlusconi's governing coalition.
In January, the government held a special cabinet session in Reggio Calabria to unveil its new anti-mafia plan intended to streamline anti-mafia legislation, auction off seized Mafia assets and protect public tenders from infiltration by organized crime. Photo: Alfano
